Though I’ve been backed into a corner for quite a while now, I was forced to borrow money from my brother just to be able to feed myself near the end of last month. A few people increased their contributions through my Pat account, but, when it comes down to it, I’ve been making between 1/4 to 1/3 minimum wage for nearly three years at this point.
I was hoping to earn a bit more through the website, and, while things are going decently well on that end, Google has yet to approve my Adsense account. In other words, I haven’t earned a single penny. Instead, the popularity of EPIC on Webnovel has started to tank while my finances tanked a long time ago.
I wrote EPIC for three years at a substantial loss to myself. In total, I earned around $14,000 through various contributions, but, in that same amount of time, I had to spend around $35,000 just to keep myself alive. That’s without any health insurance, dental care, or anything. In spite of this, I never let up because I was confident that the community would come out to support me.
No matter how difficult things got over these past three years, I always did my best to output at least a single chapter a day. On most, I posted at least three. In my prime, even six wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Rather, I was writing an average of 14,000 words a day just to ensure I was reaching the goal I had set for myself.
What most of you may not realize is that writing takes a lot of time and effort. Sure, I may sit at a computer most of the day, but, as a result, my health has declined immensely. On average, I work between 8-10 hours a day with only a single day off. In total, that amounts to around 48-60 hours depending on whether I’m releasing 3-4 chapters a day.
The minimum wage in my area is around $11.50. In other words, an untrained High School dropout can make upwards of $11.50 an hour just working retail at a fast-food restaurant. Due to the recent pandemic, there are some places that are hiring people for even more just to get them to stay.
The thing most people don’t know about minimum wage, at least here in the States, is that it is far from enough money to pay rent and support the average person’s lifestyle. There are innumerable examples of people having to work multiple jobs just to be able to afford their car payments and insurance. In my case, I’ve been forced to rely on the kindness of others just to avoid entering the red each month.
Now that I’m supposed to be treating writing as a full-time job, my goal is to, at the very least, earn a minimum wage. If I can’t, I will have no choice but to get another job, and, as a result, the amount of time I have to write will decrease exponentially. Thus, from this moment onward, my release rate will depend entirely on the amount of money I’ve made. After all, no one in their right mind would work upwards of 60 hours a week for free.
In an effort to increase my earnings to a living wage, I’ve updated my Patron Goals and come up with a few incentives to try and encourage people to continue supporting me. First and foremost, I will be releasing content based on what my patrons want to read. Once we have achieved my first goal, we will be running polls that last for two weeks at a time. At the end of those two weeks, the prompt that has received the most votes will be the story I focus on for the following two weeks. If people want me to write Fenrir’s Journey, I will write Fenrir’s Journey. If they want me to write Babel, I will write Babel. If they want me to write a new fanfic filled with smut, I will write a new fanfic filled with smut. Simply put, I will write what I’m paid to write. It’s that simple.
Since some of you may look at my Patron Goals and scoff, allow me to break down the numbers for you. At 300 Patrons, I will guarantee at least 50 chapters a month. While that may not sound like a lot, the thing you need to consider is that 50 chapters take roughly 125 hours to produce. Even if I didn’t factor in overtime and double-time, that is approximately $1437.50 worth of work.
To sweeten the deal a bit, once I reach my first target goal, I will be investing $100 back into the community each month in the form of Discord Nitro giveaways. Once I reach my second goal, that amount will increase to around $200. A grand prize winner will also receive the opportunity to have me write a personalized one-shot regarding any subject of their choosing. In other words, you will be able to pitch me your idea and I will do my best to draft it into a 3000-5000 one-shot that you can either keep for yourself or include in the writing prompts people will vote for every two weeks.
If I haven’t made it transparently clear at this point, my penultimate goal is merely to earn a living wage for the work I do. Reaching 600 Patrons will allow me to do just that, but, because I am used to living a very frugal existence, upwards of 55% of my earnings will invariably find its way back to the community in the form of artwork and other assets. I just want to be able to earn enough to be healthy and not have to worry about my teeth literally falling out due to an abscess that has been slowly spreading through my gums. While this post may make me sound selfish, I believe the vast majority of you will be able to understand my reasoning.
If earning a minimum wage in exchange for providing content to tens of thousands of people is considered selfish, I honestly don’t know what else to say…
Sincerely,
Ein
P.S. Starting with the chapter released 10 mins before the reset, there will be an additional chapter released every hour until Webnovel is caught up with Libraryofakasha.com. After that, I will basically be on hiatus until I either reach my first goal or the month changes. From then on, I am only going to write and release content that I’ve been paid to write. As for what I’ll be doing for the rest of this month? I am job hunting. If I can’t make enough money to live creating content, I need to find work elsewhere. I can’t keep leeching off of others just to get by.
